Rickious Concept Art: The Great Temple City

[Rickious]

Right, i mentioned a huge structure visible throughout Elsweyr in another thread. I dont know what would be most appropriate on the top of this, maybe a temple with statues to all the gods, or one large monolith, monument or statue to the mother?

My concept is large scale, the 4 doors you see along the front would be large enough to cater for any feline species and a little more so about 5 metres high. the whole thing is built around a stone mountain. The mountain served a dual purpose, while being quarried to produce the large above-ground Temple City around it, the stone being removed formed the interior city structure running through the mountain into vast chambers. The great tunnel which is from the huge stone platform build on the tip of the mountain, down through the entire length of the structure into the main central chamber where every day at midday it shines bright into a huge enchanted orb which charges it with light for 3 hours. This is when the inhabitants gather for mass.

The outer city is on 3 stages, the mid-stage is where meetings areas, shops, offices etc. The over-stage is host to the dwellings for upper-class, priests, priestesses and worshipped beasts. The under-stage is much partly for the lower-class dwellings for servants, workers and labourers, also it is where the sewers end and oil-fire channels begin .



I will do many more drawings of details, interiors, plan layouts etc IF the core Elsweyr members think this is an appropriate concept. I would probably redesign this with a much wider mountain.

[The Old Ye Bard]

1) Does this have basis in lore?

2) If it doesn't have a basis in lore, DONT make it look like a giant tower. That would be a BIG mistake, as Elsweyr is unique for not having a Physical 'Tower' (a metaphysical concept which takes awhile to understand), and rather just has Cats getting high.

[Rickious]

Im not up on Elsweyr lore, this was just in my head. I wanted to redraw with a much more realistically wider mountain (which would take away the tower look and leave it more pyramid shaped) or possibly an old volcano with flat top.

Its up to you guys if this is wanted. Im lore-less!

[Rickious]

Updated drawing, towerless and much wider. More realistic mountain shape and i like it. Nice impressive structure.

Like i say, can do interiors, close ups etc etc.

I propose a regular sized temple on the summit-platform which has a hollow-point or maybe even 3 hollow tunnels so that a beam of light penetrated the inner sanctum dawn, midday and dusk.


unsure if the staircase needs to go right to the summit, makes access to the summit easier to mod.

[The Old Ye Bard]

IMO I really like the look of the concept, and I get the feeling of what you're trying to establish, however something this massive is not really something easily worked in 1) It would be completly neccessary for it to have a lore refernce and 2) due to game mechanics, it would be very hard to get this to work in game, due to the fact it's simply too big (you'd have frame rate problems, plus there's other things like it being too big to fit into an allocated amount of cells, and even if that was worked around, it would clash with the LOD of the model).

I would suggest for your next concept, to research some Lore about something you feel interested, and then start working from there, rather than making concepts, then trying to work in with lore.


However, this is just my opinion (based on my years of modding).

[Rickious]

The Old Ye Bard, sounds wise. Tis a shame though.

I imagine the outside very plain, just huge stone slabs with no detail. does that help?

What kind of maximum size are we talking then? I mean the Imperial City is darn big, I will try this myself actually once i get the CS going. Not doubting you, i will just experiment and see how large it can be at best. if too small to be impressive we can leave it.

Cheers on the advice, i will start reading around on lore, where would you suggest best to find unmade areas and structures? I usually use uesp the Elder Scrolls Wikipedia. OR if anyone can list a few unmade mythical, unmade or historical locations etc and ill get on it.

[The Old Ye Bard]

Originally posted by Rickious
The Old Ye Bard, sounds wise. Tis a shame though.

I imagine the outside very plain, just huge stone slabs with no detail. does that help?

What kind of maximum size are we talking then? I mean the Imperial City is darn big, I will try this myself actually once I get the CS going. Not doubting you, I will just experiment and see how large it can be at best. if too small to be impressive we can leave it.

Cheers on the advice, I will start reading around on lore, where would you suggest best to find unmade areas and structures? I usually use uesp the Elder Scrolls Wikipedia. OR if anyone can list a few unmade mythical, unmade or historical locations etc and ill get on it.

Search around TIL aswell.

The differnce between the Imperial City, and your gigantic mountain-city-thing, is that the Imperial City is made up of many things, but your city is basically one thing, which gets complex when it would span ALOT of cells, which the only plausable way of working with would be to split it up into multiple models, however that will look weird when only have of the city shows up on cell load. To fix that problem, you'd have to use a mixture of LOD models, and LOD models will look off when compared to the rest of the city (and sometimes the engine has problems placing them, so they tend to float higher, or sink, or go in another direction than where it should be). Then if you got all of that to work, you'd still have a problem fitting something so massive into lore-friendly background.

[Rickious]

Right, so part of the solution with TIC is that its circular, when your close to it you only see the closest part to you.

OK, i will leave this for now and have a faff on CS some time. Cheers and heading for The Imperial Library now...

[Ja-Kha'jay]

don't give up entirely dude, i might just have use for these on a secret project i'm thinking up :brew:

[Rickious]

Ja-Kha'jay, mwa ha ha haaa! :brew: PM me any details you can and maybe we can secretly plant together! :hugall:

I have learned 3D modelling too now so started a quickie of this. So I can email or PM you anything for your project.